HP OpenVMS Systems Documentation

Appendix I Removing the OpenVMS Operating System

This appendix explains how to remove the OpenVMS
operating system from your disk.

You can remove the OpenVMS operating system from
your disk in the following ways:

If the disk contains a
small number of user files, copy those user files elsewhere and then
reinitialize the disk.

If the disk contains many
user files, use the PRODUCT REMOVE command to remove an obsolete or
extra copy of the OpenVMS operating system without removing any of
the user files. You must also delete or archive certain operating
system files that the PRODUCT REMOVE command cannot delete.

NOTE: For systems supporting the Instant Capacity feature, CPU status
(how many cores are available and how much time they have remaining)
is not affected by removal of the operating system from your disk. Such information is stored in NVRAM on the Integrity
servers.

Follow these steps to remove OpenVMS operating system files:

If
your system disk has multiple system-specific roots, boot the system
and execute SYS$MANAGER:CLUSTER_CONFIG.COM
(on OpenVMS Alpha systems) or SYS$MANAGER:CLUSTER_CONFIG_LAN.COM (on OpenVMS Integrity server systems) to
remove all roots except the one from which you are booted.

Shut
down and boot from the distribution media or from a system disk other
than the one from which OpenVMS is being removed. Then do one of
the following:

If OpenVMS is not running
from the distribution media, log in to a privileged account.

If OpenVMS is running
from the distribution media, choose the option to execute DCL commands.

target-disk is the device name of the disk from which OpenVMS is being removed.

SYSx is the root number that you did not remove in step 1.

If
the disk also contains layered products that were installed using
the PCSI utility, HP recommends that you remove them as well. Remove
any layered products before using the PRODUCT
REMOVE VMS command.

Use the following command
to remove all the products at once. Select the layered products you
want to remove from the menu.

$ PRODUCT REMOVE * /REMOTE

Use the following commands to remove individual
products:

$ PRODUCT SHOW PRODUCT/REMOTE$ PRODUCT REMOVE product-name /REMOTE

Enter
the following DCL command:

$ PRODUCT REMOVE VMS /REMOTE

Because
the PRODUCT REMOVE command does not delete certain files, review the
target disk to determine whether you want to delete, move, or archive
the operating system files that still remain on the disk.

Following are lists of the files that the PRODUCT REMOVE
command does not delete:

In target-disk:[SYS*.SYSEXE], where * is the hexadecimal number of any additional
OpenVMS Cluster root on the target disk:

IA64VMSSYS.PAR (OpenVMS
Integrity server systems)

ALPHAVMSSYS.PAR
(OpenVMS Alpha systems)

MODPARAMS.DAT

PAGEFILE.SYS

SWAPFILE.SYS

In target-disk:[VMS$COMMON.SYSEXE]:

LMF$LICENSE.LDB

PCSI$FILE_SYSTEM.PCSI$DATABASE

PCSI$PROCESSOR.PCSI$DATABASE

PCSI$ROOT.PCSI$DATABASE

RIGHTSLIST.DAT

SYSUAF.DAT

As you examine the preceding lists of files, you
might want to archive, rather than delete, the following files:

IA64VMSSYS.PAR (OpenVMS
Integrity server systems)

ALPHAVMSSYS.PAR
(OpenVMS Alpha systems)

MODPARAMS.DAT

LMF$LICENSE.LDB

RIGHTSLIST.DAT

SYSUAF.DAT

Also, if you previously removed layered products,
those products might have created additional files that you might
want to delete, move, or archive.

Review
the target disk for the directory structures [VMS$COMMON...] and [SYSx...] that remain after you remove the OpenVMS operating
system. You might want to delete these directories.

The directories [SYSx]SYSCOMMON.DIR (in all [SYSx]) are aliases for the file [000000]VMS$COMMON.DIR.
Do not delete these SYSCOMMON.DIR files. Instead, use the SET FILE
/REMOVE command as follows:

$ SET FILE /REMOVE [SYS*]SYSCOMMON.DIR

After you execute this command and delete, move
or archive all the files in [VMS$COMMON...], you can delete [000000]VMS$COMMON.DIR.
Then you can delete, move, or archive the files in each [SYSx] directory.